Carrie Underwood covers the new issue of Shape. It’s been almost eight months since she had her first child, son Isaiah, with her husband of five years, Mike Fisher. Carrie is promoting her athletic wear line with Dick’s Sporting Goods called Calia, which is meant to be cute enough to wear outside the gym. (Sidenote: I checked out the line at Dick’s and it’s very feminine and not my style. Also, I shower and change back into my street clothes after I work out. I know it’s socially acceptable in the US to run errands in your workout gear but I can’t bring myself to do this.) Carrie is talking about her weight loss post baby. She snapped back quickly because she limited her weight gain during pregnancy to 30 pounds and works out frequently. She’s pretty meticulous about her diet, too, judging from her past interviews. Here’s some of what she told Shape:

On working out. “I will take any type of workout I can get, whenever I can get it. For me, it’s the key to being happy and healthy. Though it’s difficult to find spare time these days.”

Make 30 minutes the magic number. “After I had Isaiah, my goal was to take control of my body again. I was lucky: I gained only 30 pounds, which is the recommended amount, and I exercised throughout my pregnancy. I did have a C-section, which meant waiting six weeks before working out. Within 10 days, though, I was able to begin walking slowly on the treadmill and around my neighborhood. It felt so good to be active! When I got the OK from my doctor, I started exercising with my trainer. Now we box and we hike trails, among other things. I like to continually mix up my routines to stay motivated. But my favorite workout is Tabata, which I can do at home in about a half hour. I’m in love with it! It’s hard, but it really works. I choose seven different exercises, like squats, lunges, or push- ups, and do eight rounds of each—20 seconds on, 20 seconds off for eight rounds. It really revs up my metabolism. When I’m done, I can handle anything.”

Get your workout wear to pull double duty. “Since I exercise almost every day, I like wearing clothes that look just as good on the street as they do at the gym. I’ve always been an athletic-wear fanatic, but everything I owned was either super-functional and not cute, or really frilly and not right for my workout. I need exercise clothing that I can actually work out in but that also looks great if I meet a friend for coffee afterward. That’s why I created Calia with Dick’s Sporting Goods. And now I wear it everywhere.”

Flatten your belly overnight. “I’m vegan and I love bread, but recently, I started making dinner a breadless meal. I’ll have a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, and I’ll make a sandwich on Ezekiel bread for lunch, but in the evening I’ll have protein and vegetables and no bread. When I wake up, my belly is flat!”

Find your chill time. “I think it’s so important to sit quietly every day for 10 minutes. In the morning, I enjoy my cup of coffee and plan the day in my head to be ready for it. And sometimes at night, I sip a glass of red wine and just relax. I’ve learned to give myself a break.”

[From Shape]

Carrie makes a lot of good points here except for claiming that skipping bread gives her a flat stomach. (To be fair to her, Shape added the “flatten your belly overnight” claim, she didn’t say that.) There’s no magic food to avoid to lose weight; it’s calories. You can eat bread, ice cream, pizza, etc. in moderation and still lose or maintain weight if you eat less calories than you burn. People make it complicated by ascribing to different bits of folk wisdom including avoiding entire food groups like meat, dairy or gluten. In truth no one needs to avoid those things unless they’re sensitive to them. It’s possible that bread makes her bloated though, if that’s what she means. Plus she’s not advocating eliminating gluten for no reason, that’s just a pet peeve of mine.

As Kaiser covered yesterday, Carrie also covers this week’s People Magazine. In People, Carrie admits that she tried diet supplements with ephedra in them. That must have been before they were banned in 2004. She said “It wasn’t the best way. If I could go back and talk to myself I’d be like, ‘Here’s how you do it the right way.‘” I tried a diet pill with ephedra and caffeine in the late 90s when it was still legal. I think I lasted on it two days because it made me feel sweaty and nervous.

Carrie is shown out in London in September and at a Project Runway event with Zac Posen earlier that month. Credit: FameFlynet